For the production of knitted goods, knitting systems are generally used which can be provided with sinkers. These sinkers operate jointly with needles, for example latch needles, having a latch that is positioned pivoting.
A knitting system of this type is already known from European Patent Application 0 570 340 B1, wherein the sinker for this knitting system consists of a flat metal part with a u-shaped recess. The latch needle is moved past this recess in a direction transverse thereto. Correspondingly, the latch of the latch needle also moves past a defined area of the sinker.
Whenever the sinker and the latch needle come in contact, it can result in wear, particularly if the latch comes in contact with the sinker. The latches of needles, e.g. used in circular knitting machines, are deflected to the side as a result of centrifugal forces and inertial forces, even those on new needles that are still positioned with relatively small play in the needle shank. This deflection increases over the service life of the needle as a result of continued wear and increased latch play. The accompanying increase in wear of the sinker and the latch can make it necessary to replace the sinkers and latch needles. To be sure, the European Patent 0 570 340 B1 proposes to increase the sheet metal thickness of the sinker portion that engages in the sinker cam in order to reduce wear occurring thereon and, instead, to reduce the thickness of the frontal section that comes in contact with the thread. However, the sheet metal thickness in the frontal section cannot be reduced too much because such a reduction is limited by the required stability and/or bending resistance for the sinker and the cutting sensitivity of the threads that are used.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to produce a sinker and/or a knitting system with reduced wear.